


May Our Paths Cross Again

by solarisensun



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Love, Reader-Insert, Sad Oikawa Tooru, sad hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarisensun/pseuds/solarisensun
Summary: He loved you so much that he forgot what it felt like to hate himself
Relationships: Aobajousai Volleyball Club/Reader, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader, Oikawa Tooru & Aobajousai Volleyball Club, Oikawa Tooru/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	May Our Paths Cross Again

**Author's Note:**

> feelin angsty and sad so this is the product. I was listening to 'Wonder' by Shawn Mendes when writing this but you can insert any sad song of your choice :)

“The sky is so pretty today. I told you it was a right choice to come out this evening.” You said, tilting your head back to get a better view.

It _is_ pretty today, you are right. Not that he’d admit that aloud because you would hold it over him _forever_. Gold threads yawned across the rosy sky like ichor veins of a heavenly being. The rippling water around reflects the sun to blaze in a fierce golden. But he’s _not_ looking at the view.

It strikes Oikawa Tooru that he loves you for the first time when the two of you are sitting on the beach, the comforting weight of your shoulder brushes against his when you speak, toes wriggling in the sand. It’s a sudden realisation that hits him like a freight truck, all the little things that accumulated to _this_. This very moment when he realises that he’s in love with his best friend.

The soft croon of your favourite song plays from the little speaker he’d brought in the background. Your hair dances carelessly in the warm wind, dappled in beautiful shades under the dwindling golden rays of the sun and he is hit with a silly impulse to run his fingers through your flowing locks, would they be as soft as they looked?

He nearly does it.

Until a loud shriek from the nearby kids playing in the sea snaps your head away and Oikawa lets his hand fall back to his side.

“What are you thinking about?” You asked over the quiet slosh of waves lapping at the beach, smiling at his no doubt dazed expression.

For the first time in his life, Oikawa Tooru is at a loss for words. He’d always been clever with words, able to twist them with his picture-perfect face of innocence that never failed to get him what he wanted (or rescue him from trouble).Why did you make him nervous all of a sudden? You’d been his friend since 8! Childhood friends don’t make each other nervous.

“Um…. _Oh!_ There’s a bug in your hair.” He stuttered, hand reaching out but you beat him to it, shaking your head to get rid of the imaginary bug he had just conjured out of nowhere.

“Is it gone now?”

“Yes.” He breathes out, yanking his gaze away from your face to fixate on the sun despite the sharp sting in his eyes at the sharp glare and praying that his face isn’t flushed an embarrassing shade of pink. He feels like the roles have been reversed, he was now the pining fangirl and you were him! The absurdity of it nearly makes him chortle out loud. “It’s all good now.” But he’s not dense. He’s knows he’s in love, does he dare tell you? _No_ , it would ruin everything. Knowing you, you’d probably laugh outright in his face the moment he blurts it out.

Oikawa decided that maybe this feeling would fade, that maybe tomorrow, you would go back to being his best friend and not a girl that made his heart speed up. Maybe this epiphany was temporary, a trick of light, he’s sure the two of you will be back to nipping each other’s heels and rough housing tomorrow.

If only love was that simple.

“We should get back shouldn’t we?” You sigh, “Hajime will be mad if we’re late again.”

“Your right,” He pushes himself to his feet, brushing away the grains of damp sand that clings to his trousers. Instinctively (after years of wrestling each other to the ground and making you cry), Oikawa reaches out a hand to pull you up too. The feeling of your smaller palm pressed snugly against his has him freezing up like a deer in headlights.

“Tooru,” you chide when he stares blankly at how your hand fits perfectly when nestled in his. The two of you are a far cry from the snivelling little kids playing in his backyard as Iwa tries his upmost best to calm the both of you after a petty dispute, he hadn’t realise how much taller he’d grown over you until he hauls you up and your head barely reaches his shoulder even at full height.

“You’re out of it today.” You laugh, punching him in the arm. “The tournament is only a week away, how are you gonna go to nationals being an airhead? You’ll lose all your fangirls at this rate.”

Something in your laugh snaps him out of his daze and he finds himself relaxing into your presence as Oikawa settles back into the easy rhythm of your bickering that has the tension in his shoulders melting away along with the upward quirk of your lips. He’d always been magnetically drawn to you, like there was a fragile thread that connected him to you, being around you made him breathe a little easier, laugh a little louder. You were a gift of fresh air in the mountain of pressure that led up to the last ever tournament of his high school, even when hanging out with Iwa, Makki and Mattsun, it had been nothing but volleyball, volleyball, volleyball.

He still remembers how relieved he felt when Aoba Johsai scored the match point against Karasuno, it wasn’t glee nor happiness that coursed through his veins after the victory but instead a grim sense of resigned _relief_. Relief that Tobio Kageyama – the monster genius hadn’t been able to surpass him – an ordinary player, relief that he was able to keep his rivals at bay for another short day. It gnaws at his bones, the insistent voice that hisses in his ear no matter how hard he tries to snuff it out. It’s inevitable that Tobio would soon overtake him to soar up to new heights, heights that he wouldn’t be able to achieve no matter how hard he slaves away.

But the tournament is not today, it’s not tomorrow either.

Right in this fleeting moment, basking under the warm glow of the sunset and with his lungs full of the salty sea air, he’s just another ordinary student walking home with his high school crush. And in that moment, Oikawa was a boy again, one who believed in miracles and fates, the same boy that bragged to you about how he would be the best setter in the world. Maybe it was fate that let your path cross his, but it was also the same cruel fate that cursed him as an ordinary player, unable to reach the heights of playing skill like Ushijima or Tobio.

As he waves goodbye to your retreating figure vanishing behind the door of your house, Oikawa Tooru bestows a silent promise to himself under the dim illumination of street lamps. If fate had led you to him in this vast world, maybe it would grant him a miracle too.

If he wins, he’ll write you a love letter.

\-----

The letter gathers dust in the bottom of his drawer. The paper utterly crumpled from his repeated furious rubbing as he rewrites the same darned phrase for the 4th time.

He can barely meet your eyes when you talk to him. The ashy taste of defeat is still strong in his tongue and he can’t – can’t bear to look in your bright eyes and see the sadness in them. It would tear his already fragile resolve to shreds. The timing couldn’t have been any worse.

“Tooru.”

“ _What?”_ He’s being mean, he knows that, but he _can’t_ help it. Can’t help the angry bite in his tone when he snaps at you. Can’t help the ugly shade of bitterness and frustration that colours the single word.

“ _Tooru_ ,” you say again, taking a step closer to his huddled form, undeterred hand reaching out to grab him by the sleeve of his volleyball jacket. You know him like that back of your hand, fully aware that this devastating loss would lead to his spiral downwards into self-destruction.

He steps away, avoiding your touch and it’s as if he had slapped you across your face. He’d _never_ shied away from you. The raw unhidden hurt is scrawled over your delicate face at the little motion and you still immediately, outstretched hand curling inwards tight enough that he can see your fingers turn bone white. It makes his breathing hitch painfully at the expression on your face. His heart is pounding somewhere in the empty space between his ears, everything feels oddly out of focus.

“Can you just say it?” Oikawa looks away to the bleary stadium ceiling, unable to stomach the sight of your blanched face without feeling like the sky is pressing on his chest as his hands balls into clenched fists at his sides. “I’m tired.” Tired of always being not enough to you, to his teammates, to volleyball, to himself.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice is awfully small and when he sneaks a peek at your face, he can already see the unshed tears clinging to your lashes. How long had it been since he last saw you cry? Why are you saying sorry anyway, it’s not your fault. _None_ of this is your fault, he has no one to blame but himself. And all of a sudden, he genuinely feels so tired. The weight of the broken promises of his high school years burdened on his shoulders, the frustration of losing again and again and again as he fights a losing uphill battle, watching years of sweat and tears vanish into thin air on court.

“It’s not your fault.” He replies bitterly, mind suddenly flashing to the unfinished letter laying on his desk.

He had his hopes set too high didn’t he?

\-----

“You broke her fucking heart you fucking idiot.” Oikawa doesn’t even flinch when Iwa grabs him by the collar and slams him against the wall hard enough that pain blossoms across the back of his head. The ace is seething, pure fury flaring in those stony eyes.

“You didn’t really have to state the obvious did you?” He croaks hoarsely against the pressure on his throat.

“ _Why’d you do it_? Everyone with a pair of eyes knew that you loved her. You literally look at her like she hangs the stars in the sky ever since we were kids.” Hajime snarls, nostrils flaring and he punctuates his words with a harder shove. The surly ace had always treated both you and Oikawa with a fierce sense of protectiveness, even more so when you had grown up with the both of them (the sheer number of times he’d patched up your scraped knees or waited patiently for you after school when Oikawa was busy with practise to make sure you never walked home alone), he’d practically taken up the role as the older brother you never had. The image of your tear stained face brushing past him left his nerves fraying in anger and imagine his surprise when he sees a stony-faced Oikawa in the opposite direction of your frenzied steps.

This time, Oikawa can’t stop the way his voice rises in a deafening crescendo that has a flash of surprise flicker across Iwaizumi’s face at the sudden outburst. “ _Look at me!_ Look at me Iwa!” Oikawa lets out a sharp bitter laugh that’s borderline hysterical. “Do you _think_ I can make her happy? I can’t even look at myself in the fucking mirror right now!”

“I made her _cry_ even before she confessed to me for God’s sake!” He can’t hold back the raw surge of emotions that bursts through now, “Look me in the eye and tell me she would be happy with me. I am _nothing_ ,” He chokes through the sentence, fighting the hot tears that threatened to leak out. “I cannot offer myself to the girl I love like- _like……this_.”

“She would give me her everything and I know that I can’t, _I CAN’T_ ,” He isn’t aware that the tears have spilled until his cheeks are stained wet and the upturned collar of his jacket turns damp. “I don’t deserve her at all.” The last sentence is soft, barely audible, all the fight now drained out of him as Oikawa slumps against the wall, his long beautiful lashes casts devastating shadows across his half-lidded eyes.

“I made so many promises.” He whispers, more to himself than to Iwaizumi. It’s all that’s left of him, the husk of a prideful, ordinary man. “And I couldn’t keep a single one of them.”

He’s not just referring to you. It dawns on Iwaizumi in that brief instant, the sheer amount of pressure and pride his best friend had been silently piling on himself throughout all these years with battered knuckles and bruised fingers. He’d thought that he knew how hard Oikawa had been pushing himself both mentally and physically, had tried his best to keep him from slipping, until now. You were the last edge that kept the setter sane, the only thing that kept him from drowning into the murky depths.

And now you were gone.

Iwaizumi Hajime watches as Oikawa Tooru reach his breaking point right in front of his eyes, and he simply can’t do anything about it.

Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything, he’d never been good with flowery nor clever words like his silver-tongued friend. But something in his friend’s eyes softens and Iwaizumi pulls him into a fierce hug, instead letting the setter bawl his eyes out into his shoulder.

_“I couldn’t keep them too.”_

_\-----_

“I need to be enough,” Oikawa tells Iwaizumi over the phone, his ear pressed into his shoulder when he digs through his closet for clothes to pack. “I want to be better. For….myself.” For her, for you, for everyone.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” There is a noisy bustle in Iwaizumi’s background, “Give me a min,” he grunts and the white noise fades away with a slam of the door.

“I’m going to Argentina.”

There is a long tense beat of silence so quiet that Oikawa is sure that his friend has hung up on him. Before Iwaizumi’s angry voice echoes across his phone. 

“You’ve officially lost it.” Iwaizumi hisses over the phone, Oikawa can literally visualize his best friend throwing his hands up in exasperation . “ _Are you kidding_?”

“Nope,” He pops the ‘ _p_ ’ word loud enough to hear a sigh of annoyance crackle over the speaker. “I’m leaving next Wednesday.”

The only response he receives is the dull tone of Iwaizumi hanging up on him before he completes his sentence.

The last time he sees you is in the airport. He’d thought that you wouldn’t come, Oikawa would understand if you didn’t come and send off the person who broke your heart, he should have known you better than that.

Your crying again, face all red and splotchy and he feels his chest swell with a rush of adoring affection despite the fact that he’s making you cry _again_. Your sudden embrace knocks the wind out of his chest, “Come back in one-piece o-okay?” You hiccup, voice cracking like brittle glass towards the end of your sentence.

It’s the closest you’ve been to him since the incident. Sure, you’d still been friendly to him but there was a certain uncomfortable coolness in you that warded him away, prevented the two of you from settling into your usual comfortable rhythm. Poor Iwaizumi had been constantly dragged around everywhere you went in a pitiful attempt to disguise the fact that you just _didn’t_ want to spend any time alone with him.

All of a sudden he feels whole again, like the missing void in him had been filled in with your presence. Feels the thread between the two of you entangle into messy tangled knots as the familiar intimacy settles over him. _He loves you_ , loves you so much that he forgot what it was like to hate himself. Gently, Oikawa winds his arms around your shaking shoulders, tucking your face into the crook of his chest as feather light fingers smooths across the crown of your head as he runs his fingers through your hair with a tender smile. Your hair is softer than it looks. “I will.” Another promise.

“Don’t forget about me when your famous.” Your voice is partly muffled in his chest and he can’t help the laugh that thrums his chest. How can he ever forget you?

“I won’t” The last of many.

There’re so many things he dying to say to you. _I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break your heart like an idiot, will you forgive me? I love you too._ The desperate words bubble in him, dancing on the tip of his tongue but he doesn’t even know where to start. So, he shoves them back and keeps his mouth shut. The two of you are silent, just standing there in each other’s embrace and Oikawa prays that his hug will convey the message he cannot.

Until the robotic voice of his flight crackles over the speakers and he has to watch you cry again from behind the glass as you wave goodbye to him with the other third years by your side.

When the plane soars over the airport and Oikawa peers out the tiny aisle window, the cold glass pressing against his forehead. He feels the thread _snap_. The void in him yawns darkly and it _aches,_ as if there was an emptiness in him that couldn’t be filled. His vision fractures for a second when he stares at the sky, splinters into shades of blue and white as the hot tears he had been holding back for so long finally spill.

May our paths cross again.


End file.
